JFK

Jim Marrs, Zachary Sklar, Oliver Stone, Jim Garrison

Description

Based on the books by Jim Garrison "On the Trail of the Assasins" and Jim Marrs "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy". Final script.

Sujets

• Crime
• Dráma
• Mystery
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: script-cinema
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1991
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• Licence : En savoir +
  Paternité, pas d'utilisation commerciale, partage des conditions initiales à l'identique
• Langue: English

Extrait

JFK

By

Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar

Based on books by

Jim Marrs & Jim Garrison

FADE IN

Credits run in counterpoint through a 7 to 10 minute sequence of documentary images setting the tone of John F. Kennedy's Presidency and the atmosphere of those tense times, 1960 through 1963.An omniscient narrator's voice marches us through in old time Pathe' newsreel fashion.

VOICE

January, 1961 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation -

EISENHOWER ADDRESS

EISENHOWER

The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government... In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist... We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.We should take nothing for granted...

ELECTION IMAGERY

School kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.WPA films of farmers harvesting the Texas plains.Rain, thunderheads, a dusty car coming from far away on a road moving towards Dallas.Cowboys round up the cattle.Young marrieds in a church.Hillsides of tract homes going up.The American breadbasket, the West.Over this we hear Eisenhower's address.As we move into the election campaign of 1960, we see the TV debates, Nixon vs. Kennedy, Mayor Daley, Kennedy victorious...

Against this is juxtaposed other forces: segregation, J. Edgar Hoover, military advisors, Castro, Marilyn Monroe, Lumumba... three frames of the Zapruder film counter-cut... ending with the Kennedy inauguration and the irony of Earl Warren administering the oath as he will Kennedy's eulogy.

VOICE 2

November, 1960 - Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts wins one of the narrowest election victories in American history over the Vice- President Richard Nixon by a little more than 100,000 votes.Rumors abound that he stole the election in Illinois through the Democratic political machine of Mayor Daley... (inauguration shots) At his inauguration, at a time when American males all wore hats, he let his hair blow free in the wind. Alongside his beautiful and elegant wife of French origin, Jacqueline Bouvier, J.F.K. is the symbol of the new freedom of the 1960's, signifying change and upheaval to the American public, scaring many and hated passionately by some.To win the election and to appease their fears, Kennedy at first takes a tough Cold War stance.

BAY OF PIGS IMAGERY

The beach, the bombardment, the rounding up of prisoners, Kennedy's public apology, Allen Dulles standing next to J.F.K., both uncomfortable with the small talk...

VOICE 3

He inherits a secret war against the Communist Castro dictatorship in Cuba, a war run by the CIA and angry Cuban exiles out of bases in the Southern United States, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala.Castro is a successful revolutionary frightening to American business interests in Latin America - companies like Cabot's United Fruit, Continental Can, and Rockefeller's Standard Oil.This war culminates in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, when Kennedy refuses to provide air cover for the exile brigade.Of the 1600 men who invade, 114 are killed, 1200 are captured.The Cuban exiles and the CIA are furious at Kennedy's irresolution... Kennedy, taking public responsibility for the failure, privately claims the CIA lied to him and tried to manipulate him into ordering an all-out American invasion of Cuba.He vows to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and fires Director Allen Dulles, Deputies Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell, the top leadership of the Agency.

SECRET WAR IMAGERY

Cuban rallies, footage of training camps, espionage activities, boats, cases of weapons, Robert Kennedy... John Roselli, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante, Richard Helms (the new CIA chief), Bill Harvey, Head of ZR/RIFLE, Howard Hunt...

VOICE 4

The CIA, however, continues it's secret war on Castro with dozens of sabotage and assassination attempts under it's ZR/RIFLE and MONGOOSE programs - The Agency collaborates with organized crime elements such as John Roselli, Sam Giancana, and Santos Trafficante of Tampa, whose casino operations in Cuba, worth more than a hundred million dollars a year in income, Castro has shut down.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Khrushchev, Kennedy, Castro on television, meetings with Cabinet, Russian vessels in Caribbean, U.S. nuclear bases on alert, civilians going to underground safe areas... the Russian ship turning around, the country smiling...

VOICE 5

In October 1962, the world comes to the brink of nuclear war when Kennedy quarantines Cuba after announcing the presence of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles 90 miles off American shores.The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA call for an invasion. Kennedy refuses.Soviet ships with more missiles sail towards the island, but at the last moment turn back. The world breathes with relief but backstage in Washington, rumors abound that J.F.K. has cut a secret deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev not to invade Cuba in return for a Russian withdrawal of missiles.Suspicions abound that Kennedy is "soft on Communism."

NUCLEAR TEST BAN IMAGERY

Closing down Cuban Camps, McNamara speaking, Khrushchev and Kennedy, the "hot line" telephone system inaugurated, Kennedy with Jackie and children sailing off Cape Cod... Vietnam introduction, early shots, Green Berets, counterinsurgency programs, De Lansdale, leading up to the Test Ban signings... then J.F.K. at American University, June 10, 1963.

VOICE 6

In the ensuing months, Kennedy clamps down on Cuban exile activities, closing training camps, restricting covert operations, prohibiting shipment of weapons out of the country.The covert arm of the CIA nevertheless continues its plan to assassinate Castor... In March '63, Kennedy announces drastic cuts in the defense budget.In November 1963, he orders the withdrawal by Christmas of the first 1000 troops of the 16,000 stationed in Vietnam. He tells several of his intimates that he will withdraw all Vietnam troops after the '64 election, saying to the Assistant Secretary of State, Roger Hilsman, "The Bay of Pigs has taught me one, not to trust generals or the CIA, and two, that if the American people do not want to use American troops to remove a Communist regime 90 miles from our coast, how can I ask them to use troops to remove a Communist regime 9,000 miles away?"... Finally, in August 1963, over the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union sign a treaty banning nuclear bomb tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space...Early that fateful summer, Kennedy speaks of his new vision at American University in Washington.

JFK

What kind of peace do we seek?Not a pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war... We must re-examine our own attitudes towards the Soviet Union... If we cannot now end our differences at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.For, in the final analysis, our most basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet.We all breathe the same air.We all cherish our children's future.And we are all mortal...

CONCLUDING KENNEDY IMAGERY

Diplomats at the United Nations... Adlai Stevenson, Castor... Martin Luther King and the March on Washington (a snatch of his "I Have a Dream" speech)... Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa going at it... U.S.Steel Chairman's remarks in the steel face-off, men going to courtrooms with briefcases,... Teddy Kennedy, Rose, Joe, the Kennedy family, all teeth and good looks... and of course John campaigning, always campaigning, shaking hands, smiling, that supremely warm smile and sense of grace and ability to convey to crowds their oneness with him... forever... culminating in the more specific Texas shots... with Jackie in San Antonio, and Houston... then at Fort Worth... then at Love Field moving through the clouds toward the Dallas/Forth Worth plain which suddenly breaks into view as we descend...

LOUISIANA HIGHWAY - DAY (1963)

A moving car carrying two Cuban males disgorges a rumpled, screaming woman, Rose Cheramie, a whore in her thirties, lying there bleeding in the dirt.The car drives off.

HOSPITAL - DAY (1963)

We see Rose, badly cut but quite lucid, trying to reason with a policeman, Lt. Fruge, and a doctor - in a remote black- and-white documentary.

ROSE

They're going up to Dallas... to whack Kennedy.Friday the 22nd, that's when they're going to do it. In Dealey Plaza.They're gonna whack him!You gotta call somebody, these are serious fuckin' guys.

DOCTOR

(to the police officer)

Higher'n a kite on something.Been like this since she came in.

BACK TO DOCUMENTARY IMAGES

We see the last close-ups of Kennedy shaking hands on the tarmac at Love Field, smiling, into the motorcade... the downtown streets of Dallas, people packing the sidewalks clear back to the buildings, hanging out of windows ten stories up, schoolgirls surging out into the street in front of the car.The President is wildly popular - except for the occasional posters calling for his arrest for treason...

VOICE 7

More rumors emerge of J.F.K.'s backdoor efforts outside usual State Department and CIA channels to establish dialogue with Fidel Castro through contacts at the United Nations in New York.Kennedy is seeking change on all fronts.Bitter battles are fought with Southern segregationists to get James Meredith into the University of Mississippi. Three months after Kennedy submits a sweeping civil rights bill to Congress, Martin Luther King leads 250,000 in a march on Washington. Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, for the first time ever vigorously prosecutes the Mafia in American life, bringing and winning a record number of cases - 288 convictions of organized crime figures including 13 grand juries against Jimmy Hoffa and his Teamsters Union.The President also takes on Big Business, forcing back steel prices, winning 45 of 46 antitrust cases during 1963 and he wants to help everyday taxpayers by ending age- old business privileges like the oil depletion allowance and the fees paid to the Federal Reserve Bank for printing America's currency. Revolutionary changes are foreseen after J.F.K.'s assumed re-election in 1964.Foremost in the political consciousness of the country is the possibility of a Kennedy dynasty. Robert Kennedy in '68, Teddy Kennedy in '76.In November, 1963 John Kennedy travels to Texas, his popularity sagging to 59% largely due to his civil rights stand for which he is particularly hated in the South.Texas is a crucial state for him to carry in '64.With him is Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson and Texas Governor John Connally. On November 21, they visit Houston and San Antonio.On the morning of November 22, he speaks in Fort Worth, then flies 15 minutes to Love Field in Dallas, where he takes a motorcade through downtown Dallas on his way to speak at 12:30 at the International Trade Mart.Later, the motorcade takes him through Dealey Plaza at 12:30...

DEALEY PLAZA - THAT DAY (NOV. 22, 1963)

We see a massive overhead shot of the Plaza as it lay then. Credits conclude under shot - and we have the subtitle "November 22, 1963."

A young epileptic screams and suddenly collapses near the fountains in front of the Texas School Depository.He has a violent epileptic fit that attracts surrounding attention. Dallas policemen run over to him.We hear the siren of an ambulance roaring up.

TIMECUT TO ambulance loading the epileptic man and taking off.

AMBULANCE VOICE

We are en route to Parkland.

BACK TO a montage of the shooting.We see Kennedy, in the last seconds, waving, turning the corner at Houston from Main... We see TV footage and a piece of Zapruder film from before the shooting; fragmented images...

CUT TO stages shots of crowd people looking on.The images are grainy to match the tone of the Zapruder film.People are on rooftops, hollering.The crowd is wild with enthusiasm.We pan past Jack Ruby and slam into him in black- and-white.The camera shows a Cuban man with a radio; a man with an umbrella; subliminals.Through open windows on the fifth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, convicts watch and holler from their jail cells.We see the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository with open windows and a vague blur of a figure and a rifle.

The clock on the Hertz sign reads 12:30.

VOICE

We'll be there in about five minutes.

A motorcycle officer paralleling the Kennedy car tries to use his radio.

It's jammed.The sound of the jammed Dictabelt drives the rest of the sequence.

We see Zapruder, a short middle - aged man, shooting his 8mm film from the Grassy Knoll, and then we see Jackie Kennedy - floating on film, her voice, high, soft:

JACKIE KENNEDY

(voice restaged)

And in the motorcade, you know I usually would be waving mostly to the left side and he was waving mostly to the right, which is one reason you're not looking at each other very much.And it was terribly hot. Just blinding all of us... We could see a tunnel in front of us. Everything was really slow then. And I remember thinking it would be so cool under that tunnel.

The camera rests on Jackie for a beat, and then we see the shot of the little schoolgirl skipping on the grass.

CUT TO the approaching overpass.J.F.K. waves... Mrs. Connally turns to J.F.K.The shot is crazy, fractured, surreal.

MRS. CONNALLY (V.O.)

Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you.

JFK (V.O.)

No, you certainly can't.

Then we hear the shots: the volley sounds like a motorcycle backfire.We catch a glimpse of a muzzle flash and smoke. We see a view from the street of the Texas School Book Depository - all in line with the "official" version of events.Pigeons by the hundreds suddenly shoot off the roof. Then the screen goes gray as did CBS TV's first bulletins to the country.

CBS BULLETIN

(full screen)

We interrupt this program to bring you this flash bulletin.A burst of gunfire!Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.

We hear voices under this from everywhere, colliding in confusion and horror:

VOICES

OH NO!MY GOD THEY'RE GOING TO KILL US ALL!Be still.You're going to be all right.LET'S GET OUT OF HERE. WE'RE HIT!LAWSON, THIS IS KELLERMAN. WE ARE HIT.GET US TO THE HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY.PULL OUT OF THE MOTORCADE.TAKE US TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL.

JACKIE KENNEDY VOICE

Oh, no, they've shot Jack... I love you, Jack... Jack... they've killed my husband...

CBS BULLETIN (V.O.)

The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by the shooting.More details just arrived.United Press say the wounds to President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal.Repeating: President Kennedy has been shot by a would-be assassin in Dallas.Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons...

VOICES

(blending under)

IT CAME FROM THERE.SECURE THAT AREA BEHIND THE FENCE.IT'S THAT BUILDING UP THERE.

We hear sirens and screeching tires.The screen is still gray, randomly intercut with the end of the Nix film showing the car escaping.There are wildly tracking shots of the crowd running towards the Grassy Knoll.

The camera pans up the little set of stairs.We see more faces.

Someone in a suit stops our camera.Secret Service?

We see the briefest glimpse from the Zapruder film.The camera moves in on the open umbrella next, then to the freeway sign, then to Mrs. Kennedy out of the car reaching for help, then to the agent rushing onto the rear fender.The car finally speeds away.The people on the other side of the underpass wave at the oncoming hearse from hell.(These are fragmented, mystifying shots.The main effect is one of blackout - of not knowing; of being in the dark, as we all were back then.)

CUT TO JIM GARRISON'S OFFICE - NEW ORLEANS - SAME DAY (1963)

Pause.The lovely old china clock on the wall reads 12:35. Somewhere a car backfires.We see a close-up of the clock moving to 12:36.We hear the sound of a pen on paper, scratching... We see a shot of Jim Garrison as a young air pilot in World War II; hear the sound of airplanes.The camera moves to framed photos of Jim as a young, Lincolnesque lawyer... we hear sounds of political rallies, cheering... a shot of Jim's grandfather shaking hands with President William Taft.The sound of bulldozers carries us to a shot of Jim staring at piles of decaying corpses at Dachau... a photo of Clarence Darrow... a law degree and an appointment as District Attorney of the New Orleans Parish... Mother Garrison with young Jim on the desk... another family - his own.We look across the thick desk with the chess set, A Complete

Works of William Shakespeare and a Nazi helmet with a bullet hole in it... to Jim himself writing - pen to paper.We sense the quiet intellect of the 43 year old man.The clock ticks in the awful suspended silence.

It's as if the air itself has been sucked from the silent room.This is the last moment of peace before the World will rush through the door in all its sound and fury - to change his life forever.The camera haywires into a close- up of Jim as he looks up... and knows.

Lou Ivon, Jim's chief investigator, is already standing there in the room.He is burly, in his 30s - his expression universal for that day.

JIM

What's wrong, Lou?

LOU

Boss, the President's been shot.In Dallas.Five minutes ago.

Jim is stunned.His look of horror and shock speaks the same language as on faces all across America that Black Friday.

JIM

Oh no!... How bad?

LOU

No word yet.But they think it's in the head.

Jim gets up, heading rapidly for the door.

JIM

Come on.Napoleon's has a TV set.

NAPOLEON'S RESTAURANT - THE QUARTER - DAY(1963)

The midday customers all stare solemnly at the TV set high in the corner of the cafe.The manager, ashen, serves drinks to Jim and Lou.

NEWSMAN 1

Apparently three bullets were found. Governor Connally also appeared to be hit.The President was rushed by the Secret Service to Parkland Memorial Hospital four miles from Dealey Plaza.

We are told a bullet entered the base of the throat and came out of the backside, but there is no confirmation, blood transfusions are being given, a priest has administered the last rites.

JIM

There's still a chance, dammit! Come on, Jack - pull through.

MANAGER

(Italian, distracted)

I don't believe it.I don't believe it.Here, in this country.

They all look up, expectant, as Walter Cronkite interrupts on the TV:

WALTER CRONKITE

From Dallas, Texas - the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m.Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. (choked pause) Vice-President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly, and become the 36th President of the United States.

There are sounds of shock, muttering, some sobbing in the restaurant.Lou gulps down his drink.Jim sits stunned.

JIM

I didn't always agree with him - too liberal for my tastes - but I respected him.He had style... God, I'm ashamed to be an American today.

He holds back the tears.The food comes.Lou waves it off. They just sit there.

EXTERIOR KATZENJAMMER'S BAR - SAME DAY(1963)

Katzenjammer's is an Irish working class bar across Canal St. In a seedy area near the Mississippi River, just off Lafayette Square.

INTERIOR KATZENJAMMER'S BAR - SAME DAY(1963)

A variety of loud Irish working men sit on stools watching the TV.There are a few formica tables with chairs against the walls, and an unused pool table.

NEWSMAN 2

Many arrests have been made here today.Anyone looking even remotely suspicious is being detained.Most of the crowd has gone home but there are still many stunned people wandering around in Dealey Plaza unable to comprehend what happened here earlier today.

On the TV, we see the scene at Dealey Plaza.The reporter has several men, women, and children gathered around him. He puts his microphone in their faces.

BLACK WOMAN

(crying)

It's all so terrible.I jes' can't stop crying.He did so much for this country, for colored people. Why?

MAN

(Bill Newman, with wife and kids) I grabbed my kids and wife and hit the ground.The bullets were coming over our heads - from that fence back on the knoll - I was just so shaken.I saw his face when it hit... he just, his ear flew off, he turned just real white and then went stiff like a board and flopped over on his stomach, with his foot sticking out.

CUT TO the picket fence above the Grassy Knoll.

WOMAN 2

I thought... it came from up there, that building.

CUT TO the Book Depository.

MAN 2

I heard shots from over there.

CUT TO the County Records Building.

NEWSMAN 2

How many shots?

WOMAN 3

About 3 to 4... I don't know.

MAN 3

I never thought it could happen in America.

Back in the bar, the camera moves to two patrons seated at a table by themselves, far enough away not to be heard.Guy Banister is a sturdy, imposing ex - FBI agent in his 60's, steel gray hair, blue eyes, ruddy from heavy drinking.He wears a small rosebud in his lapel.Jack Martin is a thin, mousy man in his mid - 50's, wearing a Dick Tracy hat.

They're both drinking Wild Turkey heavily.The TV blares loudly across the room over their voices.

BANISTER

All this blubbering over that sonofabitch!They're grieving like they knew the man.It makes me want to puke.

MARTIN

God's sake, chief.The President was shot.

BANISTER

A bullshit President!I don't see any weeping for all the thousands of Cubans that bastard condemned to death and torture at the Bay of Pigs. Where are all the tears for the Russians and Hungarians and Chinese living like slaves in prison camps run by Kennedy's communist buddies - All these damned peace treaties! I'm telling ya Jack, that's what happens when you let the niggers vote.They get together with the Jews and the Catholics and elect an Irish bleeding heart.

MARTIN

Chief, maybe you had a little too much to drink.

BANISTER

Bullshit! (yells across the room) Bartender, another round... (finishes drink) Here's to the New Frontier.Camelot in smithereens.I'll drink to that.

NAPOLEON'S RESTAURANT - DAY(1963)

Several hours have elapsed.The clientele has grown, drinking, watching the tube with the insatiable curiosity the event engendered.People stare in from the street... There is a silence in the restaurant.

TELEVISION INSERT:image of a Dallas policeman hauling a Mannlicher - Carcano rifle with a sniperscope over the heads of the press gathered in the police station.

NEWSMAN 3

This is the rifle, it is a Mannlicher - Carcano Italian rifle, a powerful World War II military gun used by infantry and highly accurate at distances of 100 yards.

We see images of the textbook boxes - the sniper's nest in the sixth story of the Book Depository - and then the view out the window looking down at Elm Street.

NEWSMAN 3

The assassin apparently fired from this perch... but so far no word, much confusion and...

CUT TO Newsman 2 at a different location or in studio.

NEWSMAN 4

A flash bulletin... the Dallas Police have just announced they have a suspect in the killing of a Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippit, who was shot at 1:15 in Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas.

Police are saying there could be a tie - in here to the murder of the President.

TELEVISION INSERT:Lee Harvey Oswald, a bruise over his right temple, is apprehended at the Texas Theatre.

NEWSMAN 4

The suspect, identified as Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested by more than a dozen police officers after a short scuffle at the Texas movie theatre in Oak Cliff, several blocks from where Officer Tippit was killed, apparently with a .38 revolver found on Oswald.There is apparently at least one eyewitness.

TELEVISION INSERT:Oswald is booked at the station.A surly young man, 24, he claims to the press:

TV OSWALD

No, I don't know what I'm charged with... I don't know what dispatches you people have been given, but I emphatically deny these charges.

VOICE FROM THE BAR

They oughta just shoot the bastard.

The room bursts out with an accumulated fury at the young Oswald - a tremendous release of tension.On the TV we see the excitement in the newsmen's eyes; they all sense that this is the break they're looking for in the case.

Garrison and Ivon watch the TV, and then Garrison stands and pays the bill.

LOU

One little guy with a cheap rifle - look what he can do.

JIM

Let's get outta here, Lou.I saw too much stuff like this in the war.

As they leave, the camera holds on the image of Oswald.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER WATERFRONT - TWILIGHT(1963)

The sun is setting through thunderheads over the Mississippi River waterfront as Banister and Martin wobble out, drunk, down the street.

BANISTER

Well, the kid musta gone nuts, right? (Martin says nothing, looks troubled) I said Oswald must've flipped.Just did this crazy thing before anyone could stop him, right?

MARTIN

I think I'll cut out here, chief.I gotta get home.

BANISTER

(strong-arms Martin)

Get home my ass.We're going to the office, have another drink.I want some company tonight.

BANISTER'S OFFICE - NIGHT(1963)

Rain pours down outside 531 Lafayette Street as Banister opens several locks on the door and turns on the lights. The frosted glass on the door says "W. Guy Banister Associates, Inc., Investigators."It's a typical detective's office with spare desks, simple chairs, large filing cabinets and cubicles in the rear.

BANISTER

(repetitive)

Who'd ever thought that goofy Oswald kid would pull off a stunt like an assassination? (Martin waits) Just goes to show, you can never know about some people.Am I right, Jack? (Martin, frightened now, doesn't reply) Well, bless my soul.Your eyes are as red as two cherries, Jack.Don't tell me we have another bleeding heart here.Hell, all these years I thought you were on my side.

MARTIN

Chief, sometimes I don't know whether you're kidding or not.

BANISTER

I couldn't be more serious, Jack. Those big red eyes have me wondering about your loyalty.

Banister, going to a file cabinet to get a bottle out, notices one of the file drawers is slightly ajar.He flies into a rage.

BANISTER

Who the hell opened my files!You've been looking through my private files, haven't you, you weasel?

MARTIN

You may not like this, chief, but you're beginning to act paranoid.I mean, you really are.

BANISTER

You found out about Dave Ferrie going to Texas today and you went through all my files to see what was going on.You're a goddamn spy.

MARTIN

(angry)

Goddammit chief, why would I ever need to look in your files?I saw enough here this summer to write a book.

BANISTER

I always lock my files.And you were the only one here today... (stops as he hears Martin) What do you mean, you son of a bitch?

MARTIN

You know what I mean.I saw a lot of strange things going on in this office this summer.And a lotta strange people.

Enraged, Banister pulls a .357 Magnum from his holster, cursing as he suddenly slams it into Martin's temple.The smaller man crumples painfully to the ground.

BANISTER

You didn't see a goddamn thing, you little weasel.Do you get it?You didn't see a goddamn thing.

JIM GARRISON'S HOME - THAT NIGHT(1963)

Jim and his wife, Liz, watch the television.She is in her early 30's, an attractive, quiet southern woman from Louisiana.They live in a spacious two-story wood house, suburban in feel.

TELEVISION IMAGE: Reporters are jammed in the Assembly Room of the Dallas Police Headquarters as Oswald is brought through the corridor, officers on either side of him.

NEWSMAN 5

(over the din)

Did you shoot the President?

TV OSWALD

I didn't shoot anybody, no sir.I'm just a patsy.

The camera moves onto Jim with Liz and the children - Jasper, the oldest at 4, holds his dad's hand.On Liz's lap, Snapper, the youngest, is asleep.Virginia, the 2-year-old, is pestering the Boxer dog... and Mattie, the heavyset black housekeeper, 35, is in tears.

LIZ

My god, he sure looks like a creep. What's he talkin' 'bout... a patsy?

TELEVISION IMAGE: Oswald in front of the cameras, on a platform.

TV OSWALD

Well, I was questioned by a judge. However, I protested at the time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing.Uh, I really don't know what the situation is about.Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of, uh, murdering a policeman.I know nothing more than that and I do request that someone come forward to give me, uh, legal assistance.

NEWSMAN 5

Did you kill the President?

TV OSWALD

No.I have not been charged with that.In fact nobody has said that to me yet.The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall, uh, asked me that question.

NEWSMAN 6

You have been charged.

TV OSWALD

Sir?

NEWSMAN 6

You have been charged.

Oswald seems shocked.